CNN’s Ryan Girdusky fiasco is part of a much bigger problem in mainstream media
By obsessively trying to have ‘balanced’ discussions, mainstream television news keeps platforming extremists
This essay is the eighth in an article series called “How This Happened,” examining larger trends in recent American political history and how they manifest in today’s politics. Please subscribe to receive future installments.
On Monday evening, CNN took the rare step of removing a panelist during a commercial break as far-right activist Ryan Girdusky was banned from the network after he made a violently bigoted joke directed at progressive Arab-American commentator Mehdi Hasan, implying that he was a member of the terrorist group Hamas.
“There is a line that was crossed there, and it’s not acceptable to me; it’s not acceptable to us at this network,” NewsNight host Abby Phillip said after the program returned from the break. It was the right decision, but unfortunately, Girdusky’s disgraceful conduct is part of a much larger problem within mainstream journalism of platforming extremist Republicans.
Before I started Flux, I was a writer and producer for The Hill, where I worked on multiple shows, one of which was “Rising,” a bipartisan news opinion show. Like most mainstream media shows, we were constantly trying to have balanced panel discussions. But we always had a problem: It was very difficult to find Republicans who weren’t crazy.
The sheer difficulty in identifying qualified, respectful conservative voices without ties to extremism was astonishing. Many potential guests exhibited troubling behavior such as making antisemitic, racist, or sexist statements. Occasionally, we’d even encounter individuals connected with white nationalist “alt-right” ideologies who would be booked until I, as a former member of conservative media, flagged them as unsuitable.
On multiple occasions, panelists were proposed who espoused Christian supremacist views, rendering them incapable of engaging objectively on topics like Israel or Islam.
The dilemma I frequently faced is one that producers everywhere in mainstream journalism face daily in the age of Trump. Ironically, the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action in media are Republican commentators. Mainstream television news is desperate to find Republicans who can engage in civil dialogue without filibustering or collapsing into bigoted rants. This is why you often see the same Republicans everywhere.
No one really wants to see CNN commentator Scott Jennings repeat his talking points 20 times a day, but it’s incredibly difficult to find Republicans who can engage in discussion and don’t have racist skeletons in their closet—or on their front patio.
Republican elites are fully aware that the crazies have been let out of the basement, but they have done little to foster a more inclusive or reasonable discourse, preferring instead to double down on extremism rather than centrism. Meanwhile, Democrats, who objectively are a moderate party compared to others around the globe, are frequently unfairly labeled as “radical left” by far-right figures and the mainstream media alike.
False accusations of extremism against Democrats, often perpetuated by figures like Donald Trump, distort public perception. Trump’s campaign has branded Democratic nominee Kamala Harris with labels such as “communist” and “fascist,” even as he and other Republicans, like the party’s North Carolina gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson, openly praise figures associated with fascism. When mainstream media voices accurately call out this rhetoric, they’re met with loud denials from right-wing politicians who aim to sideline the discussion—a tactic that Steve Bannon famously described as “flooding the zone with shit.”
Republicans have chosen extremism over centrism. And never get called on it. Instead, Democrats, who are an objectively moderate party, are frequently questioned about whether the party is too far to the left. It’s an absurd situation considering that Democratic leaders don’t even want to have nationalized health care, the bare minimum for any party to be considered “leftist.”
These lies against Democrats are usually spread by far-right Republicans like Donald Trump, who has called Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris a “communist” and “fascist” scores of times during his campaign. But while he and his allies use false accusations of extremism against Democrats, the mainstream media too often chides the center-left for accurately pointing out that Trump and fellow Republicans like North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson actively praise Nazis and use fascist rhetoric.
Given how empowered that reactionaries and authoritarians have become within one of America’s two major political parties, the ideas of Trump and other extremists must be presented to the public. But we do not need to directly hear from the bad-faith actors who promote these deceptive and hateful ideologies. The solution is not to ignore far-right ideas but to let professional reporters cover these viewpoints in context rather than giving bigoted commentators a direct audience.
The alternative is not only bad for American democracy, it’s bad for the networks who hire these far-right commentators. Remember the imploding of Jeffrey Lord, Ed Martin, and Rick Santorum? Right-wing extremists always self-destruct, bringing shame to the news organizations who hired them in the first place.
Gidursky, a known racist who previously wrote articles for the white nationalist activist Richard Spencer and gave friendly interviews with the Proud Boys hate group, has been actively working to ban Black and LGBT authors from school curricula. He should’ve never been on CNN.
Since CNN was purchased by the Republican-dominated Warner Brothers Discovery media conglomerate, putting more Republicans on the air has been a requirement by the top management. But this strategy is backfiring: for every viewer attracted by a right-wing guest, CNN risks alienating twice as many center-left viewers who are tired of watching what has become little more than a televised food fight.
This irrational “both sides” compulsion has led to a situation where accurately identifying fascism is more controversial than actual fascistic actions and rhetoric among Republican politicians. Calling out hate, bigotry, and extremism should never be more contentious than tolerating it in our public discourse. Donald Trump obviously has played a huge role in polluting the American conversation, but the mainstream media shares much of the blame as well.
Great piece, thank you.
Of course it's important to remember that these networks are driven for ratings and conflict drives engagement.
This is an important point that Mr Sheffield makes. News networks, even PBS I'm sad to say, confuse showing both sides of an issue with showing the two contemporary viewpoints in American cultural and political discourse. Has Fox News and religion shows us, popularity is not accuracy. News networks have not figured out how to handle all this or, cynically, they have and it's all about getting people to watch.